Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 38
Sacrificial address offered to the Dragon King on crossing at the Imjin and Sapyeong fords臨津沙平通行龍王祭文
Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Former Collection, Book 38 The collected writings of Yi Gyubo of Goryeo, gathered and cut in woodblock by his son Yi Ham in 1241 and revised and enlarged by his grandson Yi Ikbae in 1251. It holds poems and rhapsodies, memorials and reports sent up to the king, records written for temples and pagodas, stele and tomb inscriptions, letters and prefaces, and the state letters that passed to and from the Mongols during the invasions. The Lay of King Dongmyeong, which sings the founder of Goguryeo, stands in volume 3 of the first collection, and the daily life of a man who called himself the White Cloud Layman — with his wine, his zither and his verse — fills the later collection. The book closes with the last poem he wrote as his eyes failed and he laid down the brush, and with the dirge and tomb inscription others made for him after his death.
云云。神得水居。妙用不常於顯昧。道由津濟。大兵可卜於東西。方戎陣之啓行。展精禋而告懇。仰惟靈應曲借冥扶。收風浪之震驚。利有攸往。得橋梁之平易。無所不通。云云。
And so forth.
The god has gained his seat in the waters, and his wondrous working is not one and the same in the open and in the dark. Our road comes by way of crossing the ford, and here it may be divined whether the great army shall go east or go west.
Now, as the camp sets out upon the road, we spread a pure sacrifice and declare our earnestness. Looking up, we pray that by a numinous answer you bend down and lend us your unseen help.
Gather in the startled rising of wind and wave, that we may have profit wherever we go; and let the bridge find level footing, that there be nowhere it does not carry us through. And so forth.